The Road Home

This really is a beautiful movie by Zhang Yimou. It is one of his rural dramas and is more similar to The Story of Qiu Jiu than to his lavish period pieces like Raise the Red Lantern, or his martial arts films. So it may be a little slow for most people.

The story is simple enough - a young man returns to his home village after the death of his father, the village's teacher. In flashback he recounts the love story of his mother and father, and the movie becomes a nice treatise on love, and also on the value placed on teachers, something which is unfortunately lacking in the U.S. today. At first I thought the love of the young girl, Zhao Di, was rather obsessive, almost like she was stalking the guy. :) But in viewing this again I think I was being too cynical, and that the story tries to portray the innocence of young love. Also I have to remember that this is the work of Asian culture, and not American culture with it's preoccupation with privacy and personal space. Also Zhang Yimou using an interesting device where he will show the same scene over and over, with small modifications, to give the impression that these events are repeating themselves over time. And so it is easier to understand the depth of their love, rather than if we thought all of this happened in a week or something.

What really makes this film work is the incomparable Zhang Zi-Yi. This, along with Crouching Tiger, was one of her breakout films, and the beginning of her collaborations with Zhang Yimou that would continue in Hero and House of Flying Daggers. She is beautiful as the young Zhao Di, and Zhang Yimou really milks it. It seems like every other scene is Zhang Zi-Yi running around, Zhang Zi-Yi smiling, Zhang Zi-Yi leaning in a doorway. Which is all fine with me, but might be less tolerable to those that are not big fans. :)